Fruity Pebbles 2.0 - QCS

First week went well in the beginning. She popped in 2 days and seems to be doing like all my other grows, except for the last days. I had to go out of town and left her by herself for 3 days. The tips of the new leaves got brown and crispy and moss appeared on the soil probably because of the dome that I didn't let breath for too long. I'm not worried It might also be because of the plain water I gave and didn't check the PH. I trust my tap water quality but maybe I should have checked. Not using nutrients for now but I might next week. I received a care package of 6, 1L bottles for free from the Fred T. Lizer brand, made in Quebec. This will be a 100% Québecois grow. Fuck yeah tabarnak!

Not a good week for sure, but we keep on going. I tried feeding her one time at the start of the week, but really shouldn't have. The problem continued until I asked the community. They suggested me to wait a bit before feeding since I already had a soil full of nutrients and that's probably what caused the burn. I flushed her to get rid of the excess nutrient in the soil and I will give her more when she stabilize. The runoff's ppm was over 3000 at first and is now down at 500. I'm hoping for the best. Other than that, she doesn't seem stunned that much and grows just like my previous ones. I will probably top her next week.

We're back on track, thanks to the help of kind growers that suggested a nutrient burn and that I flush and stop feeding her for a while. The new leaves are green and growing steady. I started to give her nutrients again today the 19 at very low dosage and hope that she doesn't react badly again. I transplanted her in a 10gal fabric pot. For the soil, I mixed some different brands of soil that I had left and also added 5L of clay granulates for drainage. I built an irrigation system with sprinklers for when I leave for a long time and it works great. I only use plain water that has been stabilized for at least 3 days to prevent pH fluctuations. It runs on Mondays and Thursdays for 4 minutes and for 2 minutes on Saturdays. It's still too soon to top :/ All my other grows never went that bad and I never had more experience than right now. That seed might just be a dud.

The lady is thriving in her new environment and doubled in size since last week. She grew enough for me to top her at the 5th node, so 10 main colas for now. I'll probably top her again when the time comes. I removed the 3 lowest nodes that were growing small and wouldn't get much light in the end. I cut the nutes this week too, the new soil is still super rich and doesn't need it yet. I will gradually give her more from week to week. The irrigation system is still not 100% autonomous. I believe algae has started to grow in the tanks. Even protected from light and with airstones continuously pumping in them, the water pump and tubing became slimy and very tiny brown strands appeared floating in the water. Not a significant amount, but enough to notice. I'm trying to work on a filtration system to get rid of that but I'm afraid I might be putting to much work in a problem that isn't really one. Another simpler solution would be algaecide but it might interfere with the chemistry of the plant. An internet research tells me that it doesn't interfere with pond plants but what about cannabis?

A lot has been going on this week. I performed a slurry test at the start of the week to get updates on the soil. pH is way too low and it's starting to miss nutrients, so I started feeding again once a week at low dosage. I noticed that the new leaves are slowly yellowing probably because of the low pH. I plan a curative flush at high pH to reset it. The runoff should give better readings on what's going on than the slurry test. I built an elevated platform made from metal trays I found at the dollar store to collect it more easily. Game changer really. LST has begun. Stems are chunky and already hard to bend but the job was easy with the new floral wire I use. I used to have a very thin one that I couldn't stick in the ground. The irrigation system Is fully working now and all automatic. I still need to adjust the time it's on and off to get the perfect watering. The algae problem is solved and I didn't have to use any algaecide or filtration system. I simply put 0,5ml/L of 29% H2O2 in my reservoir. Hydrogen peroxide is antibacterial and it also helps with the oxygen levels of the water. With continuous aeration, protection from light and H2O2, the water in the tank is good for at least 5 days. 7 in fact if I count the 2 days for chlorine evaporation. I also now have a 3000L/h water pump and the sprinklers can respectfully be called by their real name. The video shows what it was before with an 800L/h pump. I didn't had the chance to record with the new system.

I was still dealing with lockout problems until the end of this week. I flushed everything with pH'ed water and after that, gave her 3L of 1ml/L nutrient solution to compensate the loss. We went from 5.9 to 6.3 soil pH and as you can see in the pictures, it stabilized. I am now very cautious of when and how I water and feed. I built some legs from ABS tubing for the elevated tray that helps when I want to empty the saucer. The light is at 70cm, 80% power for 650PPFD. I might invest in a CO2 reader to know if I could give her more. I have to adjust the power and distance of the light to get the adequate room temperature. I'm aiming for the highest difference between day and night. 2 more weeks of veg and depending on the size, I'll decide to switch or not.

Shitty week. I don't have the energy to be explicit here. New problems, lockout, deficiencies idk. I'm clueless I added some enzymes that should help with preventing lockouts and aeration of the soil. I wrote 0.01ml/L but it's actually 1 drop / 5L. I gave that on it's own because it can't be mixed with hydrogen peroxide. A bit of defoliation under the plant, removing dead leaves and a bit more for aeration.

I did another flush with enzymes at the end of this week because the problems were still growing so I wanted to have a fresh start. Plus it was needed cause we are transitioning from veg to flower next week. The nutrients of this week were the ones I gave at the start, I made a stronger batch to give after the flush. Next week, I decided to switch to flower gradually by giving 1 more hour of darkness per night until I hit the 12/12. I'm trying to mimic what happens in nature with a more gradual switch rather than straight to 12h. Apparently it's supposed to reduce the stretch, we'll see about that. I lollipoped the plant to get better aeration and by the same occasion did my first attempt at clones. I'm not trying hard at all and if they even survive, they will flower with the mother plant. I really hope problems will have stabilized for good before it starts flowering.

Problems are gone, right on time for flowering. As I said last week, I reduced the daytime by 1 hour each day until I got to 12/12. The nutrient solution is more concentrated and the light is closer and at higher power, 750 PPFD. I'm not feeding bloom nutrients yet and won't for next week either, but started the carbs again. The manufacturer's feeding program says to wait until week 2. One clone was in really bad shape so I killed it to check for roots and judging by that one, I don't think the others will survive. I'm not surprised and expected nothing less, but I'm glad to see it doesn't take much to at least keep them alive.

I think I understood why my problems kept coming back. I was giving as much nutrient water as normal water, explaining why the soil was always packed with nutrients causing lockouts. I will still feed at the same rate but giving only 4L of nutrient solution instead of the 10-12 usual liters. Apparently the activity of enzymes and bacteria can also lower the pH of the soil, so I'm feeding at high pH, like 6.8-6.9. I also always check the runoff to confirm everything is alright and to know when to feed. This week was water only since the runoff is already past 800ppm, I'll wait for it to drop before feeding again. She seems to be doing fine and hasn't stretched that much compared to my other grows. I don't know if it's due to the gradual switch or the fact that she's been stunted so many times. Buds are slowly forming, I can't wait to try the foliar spray BooBloom in 2 weeks. We start the bloom nutrients on next feed. I'm letting the plant grow without touching the height of the light which is slowly raising the intensity each week without affecting the heat, we're now at 850PPFD.

Going smooth, some changes this week. I moved the ballasts outside of the tent to manage the heat better. It works well and the temperature is stable around 80F and never got over 82F. The average height hasn't changed. Some buds got higher but overall, no noticeable stretch, so I guess the gradual switch actually helped. Waterings and feeding are more controlled and that can be seen in the runoff pH measurements that never go under 0.2pH from how it got in. She's way more thirsty, I'm giving her on average 3L per day. CalMag was used in the waterings instead of the feedings. I also reinstalled the drip system that I removed for the past 2 weeks. I pimped it up and the V6 now works like a charm, for real now. Very last defoliation and lollipop this week. I removed all the smaller budsites and fan leaves blocking the light. I thought about installing the ScrOG net but she's actually very flat and I don't believe it would make that much of a difference. I started the PK Bloom nutrient this week and BooBloom foliar feed for the next one. I'm won't be there for half of it though. See y'all then.

I started the foliar feed and I'll give one once maybe twice a week when the light turns off. Buds are stacking up nicely. The leaves are lightly yellow and the soil is still super hard to keep in the right pH but she's stable. I hope all the problems won't affect quality. The water goes in at 6.5pH - 985ppm and comes out at 6.0pH - 890ppm, so I know nutrients are staying but the soil's a bit acidic so next watering should be at higher pHand I should be sure there's runoff. Everything is really flat and the PPFD ranges from 1100 to 1450. We did 1/3 of the flowering.

Pas de nutriments cette semaine, le sol continue de s'acidifier donc on laisse la plante utiliser les nutriments du sol. J'ai par contre donner du cal-mag en petite quantité car elle en manque définitivement, du Boo-bloom en foliar feed et des enzymes. Je vois du mauve qui commence à apparaître sur les sugar leaves et les stems sont rouge pétant ce qui est bizzare car je ne crois pas que ce soit un trait normal de cette strain. J'ai même contacté Q.C.S par rapport à ça mais aucune réponse. À chaque jour j'enlève des feuilles jaunes. Je me suis aussi débarassé des clones, c'était trop de travail en plus pour 3g. Les racines ont poussées et c'est tout ce que je voulais voir.

Elle sera définitivement classée comme une strain dure à faire pousser. Une semaine elle a trop de nutriment, et puis cette semaine, elle semble en manquer. Les feuilles jaunissent jour après jour et je n'ai même pas flushé encore. Peut-être que c'est les foliar feeds avec le BooBloom?. Au moins, elle a de belle couleurs mauves et jaunes que je n'ai jamais eu avant, dommage que ce soit trop tôt. Je crois que je vais la flusher 1 semaine avant la récolte au lieu de 2 et donner un peu de nutriments à chaque arrosage pour les dernières semaines avec une plus forte concentration de Bloom. Je la ferai tester au laboratoire après la cure et j'espère au moins dépasser les 17%. Les top colas sont vraiment énormes et denses. https://youtu.be/ekomXrzOF3A?t=165

I genuinely don't know what is causing the soil pH to drop down so drastically. Enzymes are supposed to drop it a bit but not that much. One theory is that the ones I'm using are for hydroponic system and not for soil grow which could fuck up everything. It is objectively impossible to keep it in the right zone without flushing every week and that never happened in my previous runs. Things like nutrients, breeder, the irrigation system and clay granulates in the soil have changed from the last one so I don't know which of these changes is causing the problem. I don't want to say it stabilized because it never really did but bottom leaves stopped dying slowly. I started to look at the trichomes and a lot of them are amber but many are still clear. The described effects made me think it was a mostly sativa Hybrid, but I believe it's going to be more of a indica dominant. Btw, QCS updated the Fruity Pebbles 2.0 strain page with a better picture confirming that the fading and red stems were normal but I still don't know if it was supposed to happen so early. Final flush will happen next week TFG.

Last feed was given on the morning of the 12 and she was flushed with a solution of H2O2 the next day before the night. I did not gave enzymes this week. All the next watering will have H2O2 in them. I thought for a bit she was revegging when I saw new rounded leaves on the top of the flowers and what appeared to be new growth but other growers thought it was ok. Even if she was revegging, this late into flower, I don't know what I could've done. I'll give 48hrs of darkness on the 21 and chop her all at once on the 23. The top buds are around 30% amber with a very few still clear. She's finally getting a loud smell, much later than my previous grows. I'm very curious to get this tested.

Fall is officially here with it's majestic colors. I never had something similar before. I was supposed to harvest on the 23, I thought trichomes would be all milky by then but I decided to give it a little longer. I have the tendency to harvest too soon and I don't want this to happen to an already beaten up plant. Many leaves are covered in full amber trichomes since a week or two. I don't know what to believe about this train anymore. Different websites say different things about it. She should be harvested on the 1st or 2nd of march.

Last week of her hard life. I chopped her yesterday on the 28th after 48hrs of darknesson day 60 of flower. The really big and dense buds are now drying for another week before getting tested. I will report everything in the final entry.

Hard to grow in my case, but the results are worth it. Nice trichome production, on the buds as well as on the sugar leaves. I didn't expect much quality with all the problem she had but she turned out beautifully. 227g total from 1 plant tested at 24% THC and <2% CBD 3.02g of kief from the trim